FROM A PRIVATE CHAPTER OF THE LATE WAR; Georgia Boy Kills Half a Dozen Men;
Revenges his Father's Murder in the Late War.

Truth is stranger than fiction. The force of that trite quotation is borne
upon a news reporter as he chatted with a man who in as many months, killed
with his own hands six of his fellow men during the late war. The slayer was
John T. Pryor of Pryor's Station in Georgia, a hamlet some miles below Rome,
Georgia. He is of medium size, with brown hair and eyes which look as if
they might glare, but not a man to be made out as a desperado or as one who
had ever done anything especially out of the common routine of a farmer's
life.

Pryor had enlisted early in the war with the First Georgia Cavalry, served
three months, provided a substitute and had gone home. Shortly after the
evacuation of Rome, Pryor's Station in which he lived was left between the
lines with no large force of either Army near him. As a consequence, small
bands of camp followers, Independents as they called themselves, roamed over
the countryside on predatory errands, bent on robbery and not stopping at
murder if revenge or booty depended upon it. They were mostly stragglers or
camp followers from the Confederate Army and, if anything, worse than
Sherman's bummers as they were preying upon their friends.

It was in this delectable condition of affairs, young Pryor, a boy of
twenty-two years, found himself. All the men left at home were organized by
Gov. Joe Brown into the then somewhat noted Georgia Militia. The subject of
this very brief autobiography was made a First Lieutenant and his father
made a Captain.

A party headed by one Lucky Baldwin had been committing depredations of
various sorts. With a small squad, Pryor started to arrest the first party.
Four of these surrendered. Lucky threw himself on a horse with the hope of
escape but Pryor drew a bead on him with a shot gun. The aim was deadly, the
horse was wounded, the rider stuck to the animal until he was out of sight,
then fell dead. His comrades were jailed at Cedartown.

Soon, after, Colquitt, a Texas man, whose brother had been killed in an
"Independent" party, came to Cedartown, declaring his purpose to kill
somebody. Pryor was riding through the village and was called to help arrest
the desperado, who had a pistol and was threatening Capt. Tracy Pryor, and
his brother shot and killed him. "That is the prologue", Mr. Pryor said to
the scribe, who began to get interested in this tale of slaughter, thinking
as Hamlet said "thus bad begins, but worse remains behind."

On April 2, 1864, the senior Pryor and a colored man were brutually murdered
by a gang under one Phillips, who himself committed the murder in the high
road, wantonly slaying a good old man, out of pure villany, and took the
horses the twain were riding. Young Pryor followed the squad. He tracked
them by their outrages and to him one man said "If the Lord will just hear
my prayers, you'll catch them fellers by night."

Near Colma, at the foot of the Wisener Mountain, the pursuer came upon his
victims. They had dismounted, arranged for dinner and were sitting under the
trees. As they saw Pryor, who at the head of four men, had advanced toward
the ruffians; they rose, the movement bringing two of them in range. He
fired one barrel of his shot gun, loaded with a bullet and buck shot at
them. One dropped dead, the other ran around the corner of the house and
fell lifeless. The third meanwhile was shooting with a pistol at Pryor, who
turned and chased him through the woods and killed him with a pistol. The
avenger had supposed that these were the men who had killed his father. They
were not, but belonged to the same gang. Their names were Tucker, Slack and
Poe.

The last and crowning tragedy involved blood for blood and a son's revenge
for his father's cowardly murder, shall be told in the language of the
slayer: "I was offering a reward for Phillips and was shown the house he
was in. I led four men to the house and laid around a day or two. A dog
betrayed us. I killed the cur at 100 yards with a pistol and left. The
second time we went, we laid around the house in the night until we knew he
was there. I didn't want to kill him in the house where the women and
children would see it. He pased me before day. I saw him but was afraid of
killing the wrong man so let him go. We stayed around until 8 or 9 o'clock
when we saw that he was gone. I took his horse's track and followed it until
it went into a field. Phillips was in there plowing. He did not discover me
until he came to the end of the rows. I raised up and called to him. He said
"Is that you John?" I told him it was and that I had come after him. I
allowed him to hitch his horse and made him wade a branch to come to me. I
asked, "Phillips, do you know who killed my father?" Of course the evidence
I had against him was positive or I never would have hunted him. He exacted
a promise and then told me of two parties whom I knew were not in the
country at the time. The scared darkies who had been in the field had run to
the house and I saw people coming out of it. I said "Philips you are the
fellow that killed him. If you have any prayers, conscientious scruples or
think the devil is waiting for you, you have time to say a few words." I
spoke as kindly as I am talking to you, but said I, " I'm going to kill
you." He started to run. I shot him with a pistol, then with a gun. He
dropped dead and I left him there."

Acccording to Pryor, that wound up the lawless incursions, raids and
murders, and in course of time, civil law reasserted itself.

Years after, Mr. Pryor married an estimable lady upon whom fell the pall of
lunacy. While he was taking her to an asylum, he met a man who rendered him
assistance and said "You killed Tucker. If you hadn't, he would have killed
me."

The man who told this story of the killing, slaughter and revenge seemed
absolutely passionless. His tone was even and moderate and he spoke in the
most matter-of-fact way, the farthest possible removed from sanguinary gush
or boasting. His tale is undoubtedly a true one, unexaggerated and lifts for
a moment the veil that hangs over the past in the debatable ground between
the two armies in North Georgia during the Civil War.

Mr. Pryor has lived near the old home since the war, gathering what he could
from the wreck of the family fortunes and accumulating more. Pryor's Station
is named after him; he is a solid man, a prominent citizen, and very
evidently feels no remorse or compunction for the deadly work he did during
the dark days of the late very unpleasantness.